Latest news with #GabbyPetito
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The (Relative) Ease of Dehumanization
Getty Images A recent Michigan Advance article, 'Michigan leaders call attention to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people,' painted a poignant picture of the lack of attention scores of missing indigenous people have been given by the criminal justice system and society in general (nearly 4,200 missing persons cases have gone unsolved, nationwide). Obviously, this isn't a purely Michigan problem. Disregarding people, specifically women of native origin, that have gone missing is a worldwide issue, from the reservations of Arizona to the Outback in Australia, including Michigan, the majority tends to turn a blind eye to classes of people that the society, writ large, does not view as worthy of concern. We see this over and over again, but not only in the world of law enforcement. It is a general practice to put time and effort into finding missing women, regardless of race or gender or profession, but the importance that the voting public puts on those victims is directly related to the amount of budget applied to those cases. There is a stark contrast when a member of the majority, say a Gabby Petito, goes missing. Large scale investigations are well-funded and equipped with manpower and there is an endless stream of media coverage. What if Gabby Petito was a Navajo woman? Would there be the same urgency? Or what if Gabby Petito were a sex worker? Homeless? This is an extreme example, of course, but the relative ease of dehumanization (the act of relegating a group of people socially as 'less than human' by a majority of society) is something that isn't solely in the world of extreme examples. Every day we dehumanize groups of people for any number of reasons. When we do that, it is easy to disregard them. It is also easy to harm them because, in a social appraisal, they aren't really people, right? The phenomenon is not limited to the world of crime and investigation. We can simply look to the Michigan House GOP's attempt to legislate trans athlete participation as a way of providing safety for (italics are my emphasis) real girl athletes. This means that the existence of real girls is threatened by the existence of unreal girls in an obvious act of dehumanization. It is like using the term 'illegal alien' as opposed to undocumented person. In both of these instances, the danger to the 'non-human' subjects of this type of rhetoric is apparent. State Rep. Matt Koleszar (D-Plymouth), in opposition to the bill, noted 'Make no mistake, this legislation and the rhetoric that surrounds it could get somebody killed.' The words of the bill matter. It is immaterial that the Governor is unlikely to sign such a bill if it even made it to her desk, the damage is done in the nomenclature. The speed at which this can happen is stunning. We learned a great deal from Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. The ethical concerns of the experiment helped lead to the creation of institutional review boards to police psychological ethics. In the experiment, Zimbardo collected twenty-four male college students with some assigned to be prisoner and some assigned to be guards. The prisoners were subjected to real arrest procedures and placed in cells while the guards were given uniforms and authority over the prisoners. The experiment was scheduled to last two weeks but was terminated after six days. The prisoners became increasingly sadistic towards the prisoners while the prisoners effectively became submissive and bought into their own dehumanization. At its core, the experiment showed the power of situational forces on behavior and just how quick and easy we can react to the label a person wears. In this case, it was guard (power) or prisoner (less than human). The real shock is at the speed this can happen. Now, as we expand this, think of what one hundred years of systemic dehumanization can do to a society? How do you feel about prisoners, for example. Not individuals, but that group. How do you feel about police officers? Again, not individuals, but the group. As Zimbardo showed us, sometimes all it takes is a uniform for us to label a group as 'pigs' or 'animals' and treat them accordingly. We don't escape this in our faith systems, either. The dangers of using dehumanizing language in terms of antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, or any other faith of choice does nothing more than put either metaphorical, or in the case of most world conflicts at this point, literal crosshairs on the subject of the dehumanizing language. The innocent human beings being killed in both Palestine and Israel at this point in history, depending on which side your political rhetoric lands on, are either victims or 'deserved it.' This is the same process we use to pay little attention to missing sex workers or indigenous women and the same process a group of college students used to treat their classmates like animals in 1971. Beverly Eileen Mitchell takes a deep, and disturbing look, at the process in terms of dehumanizing language being components of White supremacy and antisemitism in her 2009 book Plantations and Death Camps: Religion, Ideology, and Human Dignity from Minneapolis Fortress Press. She writes, 'The absence of empathetic imagination—the inability to see members of the 'pariah' group as being like oneself—is the psychological foundation for participation in dehumanizing a fellow human being'. This is where we have to assess our own participation in dehumanization. Those tiny, innocuous moments in our daily discussions can be harmful and carry with it the danger of relegating a group of human beings as pariah. The same way many of us bristle at the thought of being called 'Libtards,' for example, as we are categorized into a fundamentally flawed person unworthy of consideration and potential violence is equally as dangerous as considering a group of people 'MAGAts,' equitably categorizing the obverse of a political rhetoric as also fundamentally flawed and unworthy of consideration and potential violence. It is that ease that we must be aware of. How we discuss other groups of people have direct consequences on how those people are treated. Be careful, because words matter. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
New York Post
22-04-2025
- New York Post
Gabby Petito's mom claims Brian Laundrie's room was ‘gutted' soon after he went missing: ‘All his things were gone'
The parents of murderer Brian Laundrie allegedly 'gutted and renovated' their son's room while he was missing, as Gabby Petito's loved ones were still searching for the missing 22-year-old, her mother claimed. Nichole Schmidt sat down with Taylor Lautner and his wife, Tay, on their podcast, The Squeeze, this week to discuss her daughter's story, and said she recently came across the stunning claim against the Laundries. 'I actually just found out some new information a few days ago,' Schmidt claimed. Advertisement 4 Nichole Schmidt sat down with Taylor Lautner and his wife, Tay, on their podcast, The Squeeze, this week to discuss her daughter's story. Youtube / The Squeeze 'There was — I actually don't know their name, which is better — that was at the house when Brian was missing and — I would say he was hiding, he wasn't missing, but he was actually dead — but his room was completely gutted and renovated. None of his things were there anymore. It was gone.' She claimed that the week her daughter was missing, 'cops were going to their house to try to get, I guess, a scent from their dogs to look for Brian, all his things were gone.' Advertisement 'The room was completely empty, just gone,' Schmidt said. The unidentified individual, who claimed to have been in the house during that time, told Schmidt that it was obvious something was 'wrong' with Laundrie's mother, Roberta. 'They said that there's something wrong with that mother she's clearly not mentally well, and I'm like that's just add it to the list because I didn't even know about that,' she said. Schmidt said it drives her 'absolutely insane' when she tries to think of any way to make them 'pay for what they did.' Advertisement 4 An Instagram story video shows the inside of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie's camper van. Instagram 'There is really nothing I can do,' she said. Roberta Laundrie is suspected of helping her son sneak away while law enforcement zeroed in on him as a key suspect in Gabby Petito's murder in 2021. His parents also refused to cooperate with authorities and give any information about their son's whereabouts. Advertisement Schmidt took the stage at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tenn., in June and said she forgave her daughter's killer for what he did. 4 Roberta Laundrie is suspected of helping her son sneak away while law enforcement zeroed in on him as a key suspect in Gabby Petito's murder in 2021. William Farrington 'I speak for myself here when I say Brian, I forgive you,' she said. 'I needed to release myself from the chains of anger and bitterness, and I refuse to let your despicable act define the rest of my life.' However, as for Roberta, she believed she had 'no remorse in your heart.' 'As for you, Roberta, and I call you out individually because you are evidently the mastermind that shattered your family and mine with your evil ways, I see no empathy in your eyes,' Schmidt said. 'No remorse in your heart and no willingness to take responsibility for your actions.' 4 Petito's body was discovered in Grand Teton National Park on Sept. 19, 2021, with investigators ruling her cause of death as strangulation. Gabby Petito Instagram Advertisement Petito's family believes the Laundries were aware their son had murdered their daughter and allegedly tried to hide the sinister act while helping him evade justice after he had returned home by himself from a trip the two had been on. Both of Laundrie's parents acknowledged in depositions that they had concerns about Petito's welfare after their son seemed erratic in phone calls shortly after her murder. Laundrie drove to his Florida home from Wyoming, where he abandoned Petito's remains. Advertisement After returning home, he went camping with his parents, sister, and her children as the Petitos' loved ones struggled to piece together what happened and where she was. The 22-year-old's body was discovered in Grand Teton National Park on Sept. 19, 2021, with investigators ruling her cause of death as strangulation. Laundrie, 23, subsequently killed himself, and his remains were discovered in a Florida nature park alongside his backpack and notebook with a confession about killing Petito.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Yahoo
Gabby Petito's dad joins search for missing Arizonan; Hit-and-run leads to police chase
PHOENIX - From the father of Gabby Petito joining in on the search for a missing Arizonan to a 17-year-old girl in recovery after being a passenger in a rollover bus crash, here's a look at some of the top stories on for Saturday, April 12, 2025.
Buzz Feed
06-04-2025
- Buzz Feed
People Are Sharing The True Crime Stories They Still Think About Years Later, And I'm Actually Terrified
After watching the documentary about Gabby Petito, I've been thinking about her story a lot. It stuck with me for days, and I started to wonder about other true crime cases — so much so that I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share the cases they often think about, too. Here are 22 true crime cases that people are fixated on, years later: 1. " Sierra LaMar went missing in 2012 in Morgan Hill, CA. A man was convicted of her abduction and murder, but her body was never found. Super sad story." StockSeller_ukr / Getty Images "Also, Pearl Pinson, who was abducted on her way to school in Vallejo, CA. There were a lot of witnesses, and the police found the guy who took her the next day but had a shootout with him, and he died. Pearl has never been found. I think about both of those girls and their families a lot." – jeanie 2. " Jason Landry!! He disappeared from my college on the way home for winter break in Lulling and has never been found. There are so many versions of the story, and that an off-duty firefighter found his car well off the normal path, he'd take to get home to Houston, TX, from San Marcos, TX." "It has just never sat right with me that no one could find him in the woods or anything but were able to find the clothes he was wearing that night in the woods, and his car and all his belongings. So bizarre." – metallicraptor44 3. "Always the John List murders. Listen to the podcast Father Wants Us Dead. It goes into way more detail than just an average Google will do." "The mother he murdered is buried in my in-laws' hometown, and, per her headstone, it looks like she's got an empty grave next to her, but we're all quite certain he's buried next to her in an unmarked grave (his body was claimed after he died and he's in no prison burial records — where else could he be, you know?). Gives me the creeps wondering if she's buried next to the man that killed her and his family and went on the run for the next 18 years." – thegassygoose 4. "I'll never forget about Maddie Clifton. She was 8 when Joshua Phillips took her life. He hit her with a baseball bat and used a knife. He killed her on November 3, 1998, and hid her body under his waterbed. He was apprehended on November 10, 1998. The fact he slept for a week over her body always stuck with me. It happened in my hometown." 5. "Back in the early days of DNA evidence, law enforcement was hunting for a perpetrator that had committed dozens of crimes all across Europe." "There wasn't a pattern to their misdeeds and the few witness accounts of the thief/murderer/petty criminal/felon contradicted each other. After years of chasing this phantom criminal (whose DNA indicated was female), someone realized that the only thing all the crime scenes had in common was their evidence retrieval swab manufacturer. Sure enough, the 'criminal' police across Europe had been tracking for decades was a grandmother who worked in the factory that produced the crime scene kits and was accidentally contaminating them with her own DNA." – sparklyshark64 6. " The Yogurt Shop Murders. In 1991, four teenage girls were murdered at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. Several men were arrested, and I believe two were convicted, but the convictions were overturned. It's so sad — two of the girls were sisters, and all were under the age of 18. They deserve justice!" – shabooshabah 7. "The murder of Chuckie Mauk. Warner Robins, GA, in 1986. The kid was out riding his bike and went to a corner store and was shot and killed. The killer was never found. I grew up there and remember this happening and how scared and upset everyone was. I was only a year older than him. There's a reward for information, but it's still unsolved." – octopuslasers 8. " The Rhonda Hinson case in rural North Carolina. She was a young woman who was shot and killed on her way home from a Christmas party in 1981." "No one was ever charged or has come forward with any definite information. It is the MOST famous and investigated case in Burke County history and yet unsolved due to the suspected perpetrators being well known in the community and no concrete evidence linking anyone to the crime. It has been televised on a few small shows here and there, and there is an awesome Facebook group dedicated to the case that works alongside her family. Still, without some serious attention from the media, her family very well may pass away without ever getting any closure." – gatitathecat 9. "The murder of Georgia Leah Moses. She was 12 years old but had a lot of responsibilities placed on her. Her 7-year-old sister reported her missing eight days after the last time she was seen." – candilove81 10. " The Zodiac Killer. I love the mystery around it. There was a recent documentary that came out on Netflix about it where we are now pretty sure who he was, and I find it so believable." –Portia, Idaho, 23 years 11. ''The Girl From Saskatoon.' I sat behind Alexandra Wiwcharuk in grade 10. She was lovely, vivacious, and sparkling with many friends. We didn't envy her; we just wanted to be her!" "Alex became a nurse, and one night during a May long weekend 1964, she was murdered. Before her evening shift, she borrowed her roommate's blouse and went to sit on the riverbank, not far from the city hospital where she worked. Her body was found buried on that bank a few days later. Her skull had been impacted by a rock, but she was still alive when buried. Before her death, Johnny Cash had appeared in town. Alex was selected as 'The Girl From Saskatoon.' She appeared onstage with him. Apparently ,he never played that song again after hearing of her murder. To me, it's apparent that she was meeting someone on the riverbank — girls will borrow a clothing item if they want to look really good. Her murder is unsolved. Alex was my friend, and I grieve for her. Look her up to see how beautiful she was!" –Katherine, British Columbia, Canada, 85 years 13. "One that I find myself thinking about from time to time is the case of Karena McClerkin. She was 18 when she went missing in 2016 in Kokomo, Indiana. I knew her when we were kids. She had family that lived in the same neighborhood as my family, and we'd play sometimes. For almost six years her family had no answers as to where she was." Douglas Sacha / Getty Images "In 2022, police had arrested a man in July in connection with her murder as remains had been found in a different county. They were confirmed to be her remains. The wildest part of all of this was the suspect (Robert Farmer) had his home searched when she FIRST WENT MISSING because her family suspected she was last seen with him. But nothing came of it. They found nothing at the time that tied him to her disappearance. And it felt like the police just gave up on her faster than they started investigating her disappearance. So, now a mother is left without a daughter, her siblings are left without her, and grandparents are left without a granddaughter because the system failed her." –Ariesgirl 14. " Jeffrey Willis. He was a serial killer in my area nobody knew about. Police didn't even connect the crimes he committed until he was arrested. In 2016, a teenager escaped the mini-van of her abductor. The security camera of a local blueberry farm got an image of a silver minivan, which led to its owner, Jeffrey Willis. A search of that vehicle, his house, and property revealed that this man had been 'hunting' in my area for years." "A file on his computer labeled 'Vics' connected him to the 2013 disappearance of Jessica Heeringa, who went missing while working at a gas station, and the unsolved murder of Rebekah Bletsch, who was shot and killed while out for a run. Not all of the evidence is public, but Willis was convicted of first-degree murder of Heeringa with no remains ever found. Willis is also suspected in the 1996 unsolved murder of a 15-year-old girl. What bothers me the most about the case is that this was a normal guy to most people who knew him, but his minivan was a mobile kidnap, assault, and murder vehicle." –Jen, Michigan, 35 years 15. "I think about Bob Crane's murder. It was never solved. Riddled with potential suspects. One stood out. He was possibly bludgeoned to death with a camera tripod for his sexploits that recorded all of his sexual encounters without the knowledge of his partners. The DNA evidence found was all used, and the case will never be closed." –LRC, Louisiana, 43 years 16. "The unsolved Hinterkaifeck murders. I think about it all the time. The murders were horrendous in and of themselves — a family lured out to the barn one by one to be killed is the stuff horror films are made of." Hans Nielsen / Getty Images "But there were so many other weird details — the dad finding one set of footprints coming from the woods to the house, strange sounds coming from the attic, the housekeeper quitting because she believed the house was haunted, the killer remaining at the house for days after the murders to tend to the farm. All of it gives me goosebumps." –Lauren, Washington, 39 years 17. "The story of Brian Shaffer, who went into a bar and disappeared!! Where did he go, what happened to him, and why is there NO evidence?!" –Anonymous 18. "The death of 12-year-old Sara Keesling in Riverside, CA, in 1988. She was reported missing by her mother, and her body was found two weeks later. There were a couple of brief mentions in the local newspaper at the time about her body being found and identified, but 35+ years later, her death remains unsolved." –Anonymous, California 19. "The Miyazawa family murders in Japan, 2000. The killer breaks into a family house and brutally slays four family members. Despite a vast amount of evidence left by the killer, the suspect has yet to be found." –R, UK, 26 years 20. "A classmate of mine, Chris Jenkins, disappeared on Halloween night in 2003 from a bar in Minneapolis. His body was found in the Mississippi River the following April. The police tried to pass it off as Chris deciding to take a drunken swim and drowning. BS. The bar was NOT within walking distance of the river. Any local knows that NO ONE swims the Mississippi River, drunk or sober. Everyone knew Chris met a sinister end. His parents have spent a fortune to prove he was murdered. The Minneapolis police refuse to use the evidence to investigate further." "There has been talk that Chris was murdered in an attempted robbery or possibly a hate crime (he was wearing a culturally insensitive costume and we grew up in a white, privileged suburb). However, there is speculation that his then-girlfriend was having an affair with a Minneapolis officer (even incorporating said officer's jacket in her Halloween costume). Since Chris's disappearance, the corruption of the MPS has come to light. My partner worked for them when we met. He can corroborate but won't since he's a person of color and fears for our lives if he says anything. So, it could very well be that Chris was a victim of an MPS officer." –EPHS, class of 1999, Minneapolis 21. " Amber Lynn Smith, Texas, 2006. Her children were found alone in her home the morning she was reported missing. Her body was found under a bridge about 10 miles away, weeks later." –Anonymous 22. "I often think about the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and the fact that her likely killer was given such preferential treatment because his father was a judge. The other case I think about is the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, just because I doubt her poor family will ever get closure one way or another. That investigation was completely botched from the start." –Pat, 31 years, Pennsylvania
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Allegations against IU team doctor show reality of sexual assault
When you think about a typical sexual assault victim, what comes to mind? It's likely a woman, probably young. Maybe it's a child or teen who is weak, vulnerable, without power or strength. Now think about the perpetrator of that violence. It's likely a stranger who lurks in the shadows. Like any television crime show, they attack unwitting victims they don't know under the cover of darkness. Now, let's think about the reality: 1 in 3 Hoosier women, and 1 in 5 Hoosier men report they have been sexually assaulted. Some of those men were allegedly assaulted by a trusted adult, a pillar of the community, at one of the nation's top collegiate basketball programs: Indiana University. I grew up in Bloomington. My family members have had season tickets to IU basketball since I can remember. I spent many hours next to my late father at Assembly Hall. I'm a proud IU graduate, as are members of my extended family. But what is alleged by four men against the IU team doctor cannot be ignored or taken lightly. It has laid bare an ugly truth about sports, power, and why this epidemic of sexual violence is so hard to address. I will not evaluate the case or the allegations against Dr. Brad Bomba Sr. That's for the courts to sort out. But, as we learned in the case involving Dr. Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics, anyone can be the victim of sexual violence at any time. Often, it is at the hands of someone they know, trust or even love. The lawsuit involving the former IU basketball players turns society's accepted construct of victim and perpetrator upside down. A victim simply can't be strong, physically gifted young men who are worshiped for their talent. Certainly not young men who are fast and able to fight back from an attack. And the alleged perpetrator simply can't be a revered team doctor of a storied athletic dynasty with ties to a legendary coach. Certainly not in an environment where others — trainers, coaches, other players — are aware of the alleged assaults. Certainly not in a place where we expect a team to be a family and ensure the safety and well being of each other. Opinion: Netflix's Gabby Petito series lays bare hidden patterns of domestic violence But that's just the point. Anyone, anywhere, is at risk, even if you are an elite gymnast or a standout basketball player. And with reputations, contracts, winning records and the associated income to the university all on the line, the harder it is for people to comprehend that sexual assault can occur in these safe spaces. That's why at the Indiana Coalition is End Sexual Assault, we start by believing survivors. We never discount a victim when they come forward, no matter how much time has passed, no matter how beloved the alleged perpetrator is and no matter how hard it is to believe that male athletes at the top of their game could be a victim. Because we know it can happen to anyone. Beth White is CEO of the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Sexual assault is widespread — even against men | Opinion
